William Walsh (poet)
William Walsh (1663 - 18 March 1708) was an English poet and literary critic. It is not as a poet, however, but as the friend and correspondent of Alexander Pope that Walsh is best known. Life Walsh, a son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley, Worcestershire, was born at Abberley, the family seat. On 14 May 1678 he became a gentleman-commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, at the age of 15. He left the university without a degree.Ward, 226. A reference in Dryden's Postscript to the Æneis’(1697) shows them to have been for some years previously on terms of intimacy. On 10 August 1698 he was returned to parliament for Worcestershire; he was re-elected on 22 January 1700-1 and on 5 August 1702. In the parliament of 1705 Walsh sat as member for Richmond in Yorkshire. His politics were those of a consistent supporter of the protestant succession and of the whig war policy. In 1704 Walsh joined with Vanbrugh and Congreve in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac; or, Squire Trelooby, an adaptation of Molière's farce, which was performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields on 30 March 1704, and, with a new second act, at the Haymarket on 28 Jan. 1706. Under Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, master of the horse, Walsh held the post of gentleman of the horse from the beginning of Queen Anne's reign till his death. Walsh was a man of fashion; according to the testimony of Dennis, "ostentatiously splendid in his dress;" according to his own avowal (see the lines "To his Book," prefixed to his Poems), burdened with "an amorous heart." There was, he elsewhere asserts, not one folly that he had not committed in his devotion to women, with the exception of marriage (cf. Letters Amorous and Gallant, No. xx.). Relationship with Pope Walsh's chief title to fame lies in his connection with Pope, and in the tributes from the latter that resulted from it. Wycherley had sent to Walsh, to whom Pope then was not personally known, the manuscript of Pope's Pastorals (or of part of them), according to Pope himself in April 1705, but this is highly improbable (see Elwin, i. 240. Pope's statement to Spence that he was "about 15" when he made Walsh's acquaintance was clearly incorrect). Walsh praised the Pastorals, venturing on the assertion that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age. In June Walsh wrote to the young poet in a most encouraging tone, and in the following month Pope began to consult him on particular points in reference to his poem. By July 1707 the acquaintance had become intimate enough for Walsh to write from Abberley expressing his hope to see Pope there shortly, and the latter actually went there in August. (His statement that he spent part of the summer of 1705 with Walsh in Worcestershire is apparently one of Pope's falsifications of chronology; see Elwin, vi. 59 n.) The Pastorals were not published till the year after Walsh's death, but the Richardson collection includes a manuscript in which are to be found at the bottom of the pages Walsh's decisions as to the various readings proposed by Pope for a number of passages . Walsh also corrected Pope's translation of book i. of the Thebaïs of Statius, which he professed to have made in 1703 (ib. p. 45). Walsh's famous advice to Pope, related by the latter to Spence, that he should seek to be a ‘correct’ poet, this being now ‘the only way left of excellency,’ was no doubt designed to commend something beyond mere accuracy of expression (cf. ib. v. 25, and Walsh's letter to Pope of 20 July 1706). Pope printed their correspondence in 1735; an additional letter is among the Homer MSS. in the British Museum (all seven letters are reprinted by Elwin, vi. 49–60). Writing Walsh may be credited with more genuine sentiment in the part which he so successfully played of a critical friend of letters. His own writings are insignificant. The most notable of his productions in prose was a Dialogue concerning Women, being a Defence of the Sex (1691), addressed to Eugenia, supposed by Wood, on no ostensible grounds, to have been Walsh's mistress. It was honoured by Dryden with a preface (see Scott and Saintsbury, Dryden, vol. xviii.), not very carefully written, in which he applies to Walsh Waller's compliment to John Denham — stated by Dryden to have been "the wits'" compliment to Waller — that he had come out into the world 40,000 strong before he had been heard of. Another attempt in prose, Æsculapius; or the Hospital of Fools, was published posthumously in 1714.Ward, 227. All or most of these Walsh's Poems, together with a series of 20 Letters Amorous and Gallant, addressed to "Two Masques" and others in a more or less sprightly style of raillery, first appeared in Tonson's Miscellany, pt. iv. 1716. They were reprinted by Curll in 1736 as "revised and corrected by the author" in 1706, with a preface dated ‘St. James', 1692,’ concerning the art of letter-writing, and, more particularly, the various species of poetry "proper for love." The verse consists in the main of short elegies, epigrams, and erotic poetry at large in various metres. From one of Walsh's elegies Pope borrowed the substance of a couplet, and an indifferent rhyme, in Eloïsa to Abelard (vv. 183–4; Elwin, ii. 248; and cf. ib. p. 254, as to a possible further debt). In addition, it comprises four "Pastoral Eclogues" in the conventional style, with a fifth, "Delia," in memory of Mrs. Tempest (d. 1703), whom Walsh induced Pope likewise to commemorate in his "Fourth Pastoral" ("Winter") (Elwin, vi. 55); and the "visitations" of Horace and Virgil, previously noticed. In the latter, Johnson considers "there was something of humour when the facts were recent; but it now strikes no longer." Critical introduction by Edmund Gosse The praise of Dryden first recommended to the public a poet who has since his death been solely immortalised by the praise of Pope. The lines of the latter, written in 1709, are familiar to most readers, but may be quoted here: ‘To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And every author’s merit, but his own; Such late was Walsh—the Muse’s judge and friend, Who justly knew to blame or to commend; To failings mild, but zealous to desert, The clearest head and the sincerest heart.’ The qualities which Pope attributes to the person of Walsh are found in his writings, which have certainly been unduly neglected. The Propertius of the Restoration, he alone among the writers of his age understood the passion of love in an honourable and chivalric sense. Dryden, however, was almost the only person who perceived the moral beauty of Walsh’s verse, and certainly was alone in praising his very remarkable Defence of the Fair Sex, in which the young poet, in an age given up to selfish gallantry, recommended the honourable equality of the sexes and the views now understood as the extension of women’s rights. He possessed little versatility, but much sweetness in the use of the heroic measure, and a certain delicate insight into emotion. His poem entitled "Jealousy" ... is by far the most powerful of his productions, and a marvellously true picture of a heart tossed in an agony of jealousy and love. In studying the versification of Pope, the influence of Walsh upon the style of the younger and greater man should not be overlooked, and there will be found in Walsh couplets such as this — ‘Embalmed in verse, through distant times they come, Preserved, like bees within an amber tomb,’ which Pope did not disdain to re-work on his own anvil into brighter shapes. It should be noted that Walsh is the author of the only sonnet written in English between Milton’s, in 1658, and Warton’s, about 1750.from Edmund Gosse, "Critical Introduction: William Walsh (1663–1708)," The English Poets: Selections with critical introductions (edited by Thomas Humphry Ward). New York & London: Macmillan, 1880-1918. Web, Feb. 18, 2016. Recognition Pope eulogised Walsh in the Essay on Criticism (1711), where near the end he, Roscommon, and Buckinghamshire are absurdly made to figure as luminous exceptions to the literary barbarism of their age. In the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735, vv. 135–6) Pope repeated more briefly the personal acknowledgments of the Essay on Criticism. His portrait, painted by Kneller, was engraved by Faber in 1735 (Bromley, p. 237). Walsh's Poems are included in the collections of Johnson (1779), Anderson (1793), Chalmers (1808), Park (1808), and Sandford (1819). His poem "Rivals" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900."Rivals". Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 10, 2012. Publications Poetry *''Letters and Poems: Amorous and gallant''. London: Jacob Tonson, 1692. *''A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen''. London: Jacob Tonson, 1695. *''To the Queen: On her coronation day''. London: J. Tonson / Dublin: M. Gunne, 1706. *''Ode for the Thanksgiving day''. London: Jacob Tonson, 1706. *''Aesculapius; or, The hospital of fools''. London: 1714. *''Poems''. London: F. Cogan, 1749. *''The Poetical Works''. London: C. Cooke (Cooke's edition), 1796. Non-fiction *''A Dialogue Concerning Women: Being a defence of the sex''. London: R. Bentley & Jacob Tonson, 1691. Translated *Virgil, The Golden Age: From the fourth Eclogue, &c. London: 1703. Collected editions *''The Works: In prose and verse''. London: E. Curl, 1736. Anthologized *''The Grove; or, A collection of original poems, translations, &c.'' London: W. Mears, 1721. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au: William Walsh 1708, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Feb. 18, 2016. Poems by William Walsh #Jealousy See also * List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Jan. 2, 2017. External links ;Poems * "Rivals". *:Sonnet: Death" * William Walsh at PoemHunter (2 poems) *Walsh in The English Poets: An anthology: "To His Book," "Sonnet: ‘What has this bugbear death that ’s worth our care?’, "The Despairing Lover" *William Walsh at Poetry Nook (42 poems) ;About *Walsh, William in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopedia Britannica]] *William Walsh(1663-1708) at English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Walsh, William (1663-1708) Category:1662 births Category:1708 deaths Category:English poets Category:British MPs 1707–1708 Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Category:Members of the Parliament of England (pre-1707) Category:British literary critics Category:18th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:17th-century poets